Dick Allen

Just win the next game and move on. I would imagine the Sox pitchers know the plan, but this secrecy about the rotation, if they don’t , can’t inspire confidence. I think cease starts game 3 hopefully he has his control and the Sox win. Game 4 should be all hands on deck, and let Hendriks go multiple innings if needed, because if they win, they get another off day, and I say let Gio go game 5 in Houston. He had really good stuff yesterday. I think he was trying to be too perfect, and it cost him. He goes out with that same stuff, maybe the Sox get a break or two and beat McCullers. it seems depressing, but nothing really has changed. They were always going to have to win a game in Houston or if they had HFA, win all of their home games.

Here’s his game logs. Never pitched the 5th. Pitched the 7th twice. One was a 7 inning game, and one was a blowout loss to get him some work. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=haderjo01&t=p&year=2021

I do get a kick out of people who think modern closers should pitch the 5th or 7th innings, which I have not seen once, but also think that a closer like Kimbrel needs to pitch the 9th only. Do you have any examples of established closers pitching the 5th inning?

I agree. I don't think he will make it to Sunday against the Bears.

I don’t think he had any confidence in being able to throw it for a strike and probably worried he would send it to the backstop.

It would have been one thing if he was prepared to pitch back to back and he screwed up. But it was anything but. Only 3 times this season, all with horrid results. Why would today be different? I guess the only bright side if the Sox are quickly eliminated and they only play 1 or 2 home playoff games, is my season tickets for next year will be basically paid in full.

I have mentioned it so many times but I still can’t get over his Crochet usage. It’s a fireable offense.The guy would go for a week and a half and not pitch during the season. I forgot he was on the active roster more than once. When he went to bring him in, the first thing I did was go to his game logs to see if he pitched back to back days this season. I was guessing no, but he had and he was bad each time. And it wasn’t like he was lights out yesterday.

RedSoxtalk,com probably wishes he didn’t.

Tony fucked up plenty, especially with Crochet, but it wasn’t his fault Gio walked so many and Bummer and Kimbrel sucked.

Chris Sale tonight 1 IP 5 runs.

Kind of a lost year because of the injury IMO. I think he will be an easy 35-40 homer guy moving forward if he can play 145 games.

The only thing that may give him a pass is Engel looked a little gimpy going after the last ball he caught, although he didn’t look like he had a problem when they showed him running in toward the dugout.

Chris Sale is not an ace.

Kimbrel still has a shot of redeeming himself but it is not looking good. The funny thing is Hahn has made a couple trades so bad the Semien and Bassett for 1 year of Shark never even gets mentioned in his blunders.

One team has 2 runs and one team 1.

He couldn’t have played this series anyways, but he is a 110 OPS+ guy for his career, and is cheap. The easy to replace line has been conspicuously absent since Hernandez and his 10 times bigger paychecks started struggling. I think Madrigal is going to be a really solid player. Everything was improving when he got hurt. His power, his defense. It is really going to hurt in a couple of years when the other guys get really expensive and they could use Madrigals 1st year or 2nd year arb numbers. It is not like JR is ever going to flirt with the luxury tax. He wouldn’t even do that with the Bulls where he was printing money.

Yes, chose with your brain, not your heart. Unless Carlos was faking it throwing 91, you are just asking for trouble. This isn’t the Tigers or the Indians or Royals,

None of us have any idea how Kopech would have performed today. He may have been worse than Crochet, but we knew how Crochet would most likely perform. Only 3 back to backs all year, and horrible on the back end 3 times. How the hell do you go to him in that situation?

The good news is because the Sox will be playing the next 2 at home, game 5 is a lock.

Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking. And after watching Leury try to play RF the last day of the season, you knew a ball was going to find him.

Every button LaRussa pushed today, blew up in his face. A Reneria like postseason managerial performance.

Enjoy your $1 million buyout Craig.

Leury in RF is not good.

Hasn't every run Houston scored today reached base via walk?

3 times back to back games all year, and not good in the 2nd game each time. And he fails here? That's on Tony.